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Between repeats and different timings of the three PBS stations I could recieve PHC seemed to be available all weekend on one station or another. Like QI here, it's on one station in repeats twice most nights, sometimes a whole night of it.

There is already a Standard. It's A-440 and Equal Temperment. Other pitches and temperments are fun to play around with on your own time. But you are paid, as a technician to do the standard tuning!Enough said

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Making the world a better sounding place, one piano at a time...

That might be all you get paid for, but I also get paid to make the piano a conduit for musical expression - which means for my clients, hardly ever placing strict ET on a piano. Oh, and depending on the frequency of tuning and the humidity in the room, I also get paid to float the pitch somewhere between 438 and 442 or so...

Opera, THE STADARD is a-440, and Equal Temperment. If a customer(usually this is one of those "smartest man in the room" types), insist I tune his paino to something LESS than the STANDARD, then I will give it my best shot. However the dude is going to pay out the rear for me to spend the extra time required to de-tune his piano

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Making the world a better sounding place, one piano at a time...

Opera, THE STADARD is a-440, and Equal Temperment. If a customer(usually this is one of those "smartest man in the room" types), insist I tune his paino to something LESS than the STANDARD, then I will give it my best shot. However the dude is going to pay out the rear for me to spend the extra time required to de-tune his piano

Amazing - Congratulations for knowing that that there is a STADARD for paino and it is a-440. You have proven you know nothing about opera or temperament.

BTW - Haven't you been warned before about not listing your professional affiliation?

Opera, THE STADARD is a-440, and Equal Temperment. If a customer(usually this is one of those "smartest man in the room" types), insist I tune his paino to something LESS than the STANDARD, then I will give it my best shot. However the dude is going to pay out the rear for me to spend the extra time required to de-tune his piano

Amazing - Congratulations for knowing that that there is a STADARD for paino and it is a-440. You have proven you know nothing about opera or temperament.

Well, there are certainly standards for spelling "STANDARD", "Temperament", and "piano"!

I think there was a slight misunderstanding of who was addressing whom. I read Jim's reply to be addressed to Mr. Fowler. It can become confusing when the comment isn't specifically directed or a quote is included.

Standards seem to be flouted as Mr. Fowler refuses to acknowledge his professional affiliation in his signature line. As a pianist, I could make exactly the same statement. As far as learning from experience is concerned, he seems to not have yet learned the proper spelling of "temperament."

Here's a story: I have a friend who happens to be a real toughie of the bar fighting variety. He's mellowed a bit with age, but still... Truth be told, he has a very big, and very hard cranium. It is readily apparent, because he shaves his head. Anyway, being theater dads, we were working on building a set for a production. He was the boss. I was the painter. We were having an argument about color and pattern--it got pretty heated, but then, before it came to blows, I realized what I was up against. I said, "Even if I *could* hit you hard enough to ring your bell, I know it wouldn't make any difference." He smiled and said, "Your right."

First of all, I can sympathize with your position: ET is the way to go in most cases, and is obviously the generally accepted standard in our industry. But you must realize that it is not so black and white. As Ron pointed out earlier, there is equal temperament and then there is EQUAL TEMPERAMENT.

Have you taken the Piano Technician Guild Tuning exam? If not, how do you know how accurate your temperament really is? Do you think you could score 100%? Very few people do. And even at 100% with the one cent tolerance it won't be an *EXACT* equal temperament.

Are your temperaments 100% accurate within a 1 cent tolerance? How about a .5 or even .2 tolerance? (I think anything beyond .2 cents is beyond normal human perception). Each technician decides how refined to make their ET based on experience, skill, and circumstances.

So we have to accept the fact that if ET is the target, we will always fall short of it to some degree. The good news is it doesn't really matter. What matters is that it *sounds* like equal temperament: gradually progressing 3rds, 6ths, and 10ths, 5ths that beat under one second, fourths that beat around one second, and pure sounding octaves.

As far as A440 being the ONLY pitch to tune for, you are simply not correct. Some professional orchestras ask for 441, 442, or even higher. Bosendorfer's standard is A=443. This quote is from their website: "The pianos are manufactured in the factory at a tuning pitch of A443 Hertz, however it may be altered between A440 Hertz and A445 Hertz according to need."

In regards to tuners who don't tune aurally being "wannabes" - that's harsh. Although I share your sentiment to some degree, there are some ETD tuners who do very well. I believe the ones who are successful do use some aural checks as part of their work. So maybe we can edit your statement to "technicians who only use an ETD and have no aural skills are wannabees!

There are some who will say any tuner who hasn't passed the PTG tuning exam is a wannabe. But we don't want to beat that dead horse again...

I also encourage you to avoid sounding too much like a broken record on the forums. It can get tiring, and if anything it detracts from your argument. You sound like you are committed to quality work and have built a successful business. I hope we can continue to learn from your experiences.

The thing I believe is that people that cannot listen to intervals while tuning are talking of a so different thing that the discussion is useless.

Aint a question of ET or no, basically, but how that ET is tuned, how much enjoyeable it is when playing.

I can understand why aural tuners are so abrubt .

To make a perfect tuning with an EDT there ar refinements to be done. Most of the time the tuners do not make them, simply because it would be too costly.

The aural tuners can perceive what is wanted, tune it the best they can , and leave some mistakes orallow the piano to move somehow. The detection of an annoying interval is times fastr by ear, but the leeway is larger.

Then if one tune constantly with ETDs, he may even forget how the intervals are listened to, what is their ADN, how that feels. :

Numerous samples on videos of the result, sometime on recordings too.

Very often, the first octave is not musically enjoyable due to compromizing

ALso, knowing how to build a temperament allow to correct tunings very fast

Be a real Technician. Learn to tune by ear. Learn to set an Equal Temperment. And anything other than A440 is simply lame

My troll detector is beeping.

Kees

No, if something is worth fighting for is real tuners learning to listen.This is not because a less trained or not so much "pianistic" tuner will not obtain accepteable tunings with the help of ETD, way better than if he tune by ear without enough mastering.

But because this psuh the eventual tuners to a trap where their musical taste is modified in the end.

And loosing that part of the trade would be a real bad thing.

Sensitive tuners are more frequent today (my impression) in the part of the world I leave, because the training is better , things are better explained, but reducing tuning to the respect of even intervals and having that judged by a software, is a real mistake.

Reintroducing differences in intervals size without being able to judge those ones when tuning is also a big one.

It sound evident to me that the light WT sound better than the machine driven ET, more surprise for the ears, mistakes not so apparent, more "tension/release" effects, but the warmness of a good ET tuning done by a sensitive aural tuner contains all that yet, plus an equilibrium sensation that pianists like.

EDT tuners DO NOT check intervals, the machines do not allow that unless you stop notes recognizing features and you move the notes one by one yourself. (plus the "precision" is too much, the tuner must have trained ears and at some point the ETD agrees with them +-)

NO ETD can judge the "energy" or the "activity" of intervals.

They only can show that some partials are not lining. Do we want partials to line ? which ones ? on what string (strings differ in length often in the same unison and that on many pianos) How does it sound when all 3 strings are tuned together ? what is the interval activity at that point ?

After some time they purely stand by what the machine propose. Unless they took the time to refine the computed tuning and record it this is a generic thing, not human, not musical, and slightly uncomfortable for that reason !

Now that experienced / concert tuners have a machine in their tool box is less rare than one think. It may serve to put a tuning skeleton on pianos badly out of tune, help for pitch precision , and for other occasions.

But it is not the same that tuners that cannot gain enough confidence in themselves and stop trying.

Basically I humbly suggest that the pin and wire setting are difficult to learn and not properly explained (or explained in so different ways that the fundamentals are not clear to the tuner very often) Pianos reacting differently in different sections does not help to gain a method.

Lack of good samples to look at, lack of masters to show the apprentice, is a real problem.

Low level exigence from the audience is another.

Edited by Olek (10/05/1305:40 AM)

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Professional of the profession. Foo Foo specialistI wish to add some kind and sensitive phrase but nothing comes to mind.!

Be a real Technician. Learn to tune by ear. Learn to set an Equal Temperment. And anything other than A440 is simply lame

My troll detector is beeping.

This particular poster is dropping hit-and-runs in the Piano Forum as well. Since he refuses to list any professional affiliation in his sig line, though he claims to be a tuner within his postings, I question his credibility also.

I was rather proud of tuning exclusively aural. That is, until being humbled by an entire stage crew showing up late and during tuning time and with less than two hours till show time. Seeing my dilemma, the stage manager pulled a small electronic gizmo out of his case, the likes of which I'd never seen. "What's that?" I asked. "An electronic tuner," he replied. "How do you use it?" I asked. "Think I should call someone else?" he asked?

"Yeah."

It's best to learn both aural and ETD. You'll always have the other to fall back on.